Blog | Language, Learning and Culture

Nyusu Flash: You Know 26 Words in Korean

In Korean Language in Culture and Society, author Ho-min Sohn estimates that English comprises over ninety percent of the 20,000 loanwords currently used in Korean. New loanwords are imported from English on a daily basis as a result of global communication in the Internet era, and more will certainly have emerged in the ten years since this book was written.

Sohn lists the following twenty-six examples of English words which have permeated the Korean language:

Korean and Japanese share many genetic and typological features. Through close contact with the Japanese people, especially during the thirty-five years of Japanese colonization that ended with World War II, Korean language, culture, and society underwent considerable influence from Japan and vice versa.